Kevin Smith Explains Why A Couple Of Dicks Is Now Cop Out

A few hours ago we brought you the first ever trailer for the next Kevin Smith directed movie Cop Out (watch it here). You may know it better by its previous title, A Couple of Dicks. The new name is intentionally ironic but also, well they’re kind of asking for bad puns from critics who don’t like it, aren’t they? Maybe not the wisest title choice but tonight Smith has finally stepped up and explained why they had to ditch the old, somewhat perfect Dicks title.

The problem, is quite simply, Zack and Miri. Everything Smith has done in the past year has been colored by the less than stellar performance of his previous movie. Like A Couple of Dicks, Zack and Miri Make a Porno had a challenging, adults only title. You’d think that’s a good move since, of course, the movie was R-rated and only intended for adults in the first place. Unfortunately, because of the title, they had trouble advertising it. And it looks like if they’d gone with Dicks, they’d have been headed for the same mess of troubles. Smith explains it to EW this way:

Warner Bros. decided, “Hey man, we’ll call the networks and see if we’re going to get any problems [with A Couple of Dicks as a title], months before the movie’s ever going to come out.” The top 3 networks — CBS, ABC, NBC — said we can’t run one of your spots before 9 o’clock.

It’s all rather childish really. Smith rightly wonders in the article why Inglourious Basterds was ok as a title and was told, “because of the spelling, they got away with it.” They attempted a misspelled version of Dicks, but for some reason that didn’t fly either. Frankly you’d think they’d be more likely to okay Dicks than Basterds. The word dick, after all, unlike bastard, at least has other non-offensive meanings. Could be a guys name or, as it was in the case of that title, could be shortened version of the word Detective. But the networks weren’t going for it.

The good news here is that it really has nothing to do with the content of the movie. Smith maintains that Cop Out… or whatever it’s called… will be an R-rated cop comedy. It’s entirely likely that by the time it’s over, you’ll get your fill of “dick”.